Today, Chicago, tomorrow London

Lewy Boulet among Chicago Marathon favorites, but she dreams of 2012 Olympics

October 08, 2010|By Philip Hersh, Tribune reporter

Magdalena Lewy-Boulet #43 takes an early lead in the U.S. Women's Olympic Marathon Trials. (Jim Rogash, Getty Images)

From the time she began swimming as a young girl in her native Poland, Magdalena Lewy Boulet dreamed of competing in the Olympics.

When Lewy Boulet got her chance, the circumstances were so different it felt like a fantasy.

She was then a 34-year-old mother of a 2-year-old who entered the Olympic marathon trials in 2008 with just the 46th best qualifying time. Then she led the race for 23 miles before finishing second and earning an Olympic berth for her adopted country, the United States.

One week before the women's marathon in the Beijing Games, a freak accident turned the experience into a nightmare.

So two years later, as she enters Sunday's Bank of America Chicago Marathon with by far the fastest time of any U.S. woman in 2010, Lewy Boulet is dreaming of the Olympics again.

That would be London in 2012, when she would be 39, or one year older than Romania's Constantina Tomescu Dita when she won the Beijing race Lewy Boulet could not finish.

"I keep reminding myself about Constantina,'' she said. "I would like a little redemption.''

In Beijing, Lewy Boulet was getting up from her seat on an athlete's bus when her left knee whacked a piece of metal she had not noticed. Within hours, she could not bend the swollen knee.

"I was in such denial,'' she said. "Every day I said, 'When I wake up tomorrow, it is going to be fine.' I was working for this thing my whole life, and then something silly happened.''

Lewy Boulet tried to race only because it was the Olympics. She stopped in the 10th mile.

Just being there gave her career the boost she needed after running in place over the three years after a fifth place at the 2004 Olympic trials.

She began 2008 with no equipment sponsor, but Saucony signed almost immediately after she crossed the finish line at the trials. Now she and her husband, running store owner Richie Boulet, are doing well enough that Lewy Boulet gave up her job as an assistant track coach at their mutual alma mater, the University of California, to concentrate on running.

Lewy Boulet, whose family came to the United States when she was 17, figures the decision to give the sport 100 percent (no school, no job) for the first time since she switched from swimming to running as a high school senior accounts for her stunning performance in April's Rotterdam Marathon.

On a flat, fast course like Chicago's, Lewy Boulet did more than finally break the 2-hour, 30-minute barrier she said had hung over her like a cloud. She finished second in 2 hours, 26 minutes, 22 seconds.

That made Lewy Boulet the fourth fastest U.S. woman ever, behind 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor, 1984 Olympic champion Joan Benoit Samuelson and Kara Goucher. Benoit Samuelson, 53, is running Sunday's race with an eye on the qualifying time, 2:46, for the 2012 Olympic trials, while Goucher, 32, (just had her first child) and Kastor, 37, (pregnant) are on maternity leave.

"With more rest, I am getting all the benefits of the training I have put in over the years,'' Lewy Boulet said. "I think I can still improve.''

Her goal for Chicago is to break the family record of 2:25:45 that Richie Boulet set in 2002. In a Chicago field with five women who have personal bests faster than 2:22:05, that may leave Lewy Boulet well off the pace.

"If it's too fast, I'm not going to sacrifice my race to try to stay with them,'' she said.